About us
On Acquiring Knowledge, Originality and Plagiarism
A company's level of knowledge and expertise – or 'know-how' – may be sufficient to meet the current requirements of its environment, that is, the market and its customers. However, a company cannot ensure the continuity of its competitive advantage in the market by keeping its accumulated knowledge under lock and key. For, as Norbert Wiener (1954) [1], considered the father of cybernetics, stated: 'Knowledge is more a matter of process than of storage.' The secret to survival in economic or commercial terms lies in the continuous renewal and improvement of existing knowledge, skills and capabilities in line with changing market and customer conditions.
As a company, you cannot keep information relating to the products or services you have developed completely confidential. Even if you have your employees sign a non-competition agreement or obtain an international patent for your know-how, your knowledge base will, sooner or later, fall into the hands of your current or potential competitors. It is well known that many aspiring entrepreneurs in Turkey start their businesses by copying products developed with great effort and dedication by other organisations and by misappropriating the technical and commercial information belonging to those organisations.
The founder of toptechnics has never sought assistance from anyone regarding the company's field of activity, nor did he start the business by copying any products from companies he had previously worked for.
toptechnics has not utilised the technical or commercial secrets of any rival company in the products and solutions it has designed and manufactured. On the contrary, toptechnics is the first company to introduce original solutions to the Turkish market that minimise quality and energy losses at specific stages of manufacturing, particularly in the automotive and white goods industries. Being a market pioneer is not a status easily attained. The pioneering position achieved by toptechnics is attributable to its founder's engineering education, his proficiency in foreign languages, the professional experience he gained whilst working for both domestic and international firms, and his intuition regarding the implementation of lean production.
If you possess a creative spirit and believe that knowledge grows only by developing what already exists and by sharing it, there is no need to worry about the proliferation of imitators and copycats. toptechnics has frequently experienced this situation in its history. From 2016 onwards, some of toptechnics' employees and contract manufacturers began to compete by imitating the products toptechnics had introduced to the market, using technical and commercial information they had obtained from our company. Even more intriguing is the fact that one of toptechnics' minority partners, whilst still holding a stake in the company, secretly set up a separate company for himself and, by utilising toptechnics' labour, energy and physical assets, positioned himself as a competitor.
Leaving it to the reader to judge whether the methods chosen by those seeking a share of the niche market created by toptechnics in Turkey are ethical or lawful, I would like to highlight our company's honourable history and the characteristics that set us apart.
[1] Wiener, N. 'Cybernetics and Society', p. 121)
2005
Founding
Since its foundation, toptechnics has been a company specialising in developing innovative solutions—summarised below—to prevent production losses, particularly within the automotive industry. Preventing losses during welding operations on nuts and bolts – Centring pins and water-cooled lower electrode bodies. toptechnics initially imported ready-made centring pins from Japan; however, from 2007 onwards, it began manufacturing them in-house by importing semi-finished products from Toshiba in Japan. Thanks to KCF centring pins and bushings, production losses arising from nut and bolt welding have been eliminated. toptechnics is the first Turkish firm to offer finished welded nut centring pins and welded bolt centring bushings made from KCF material – an electrically insulating, impact-resistant and highly cost-effective solution – to the automotive and white goods manufacturing sectors. In this context, toptechnics was also the first to introduce the concept of 'centring pins', a term not previously found in technical literature. toptechnics was also the first company in Turkey to design and manufacture water-cooled lower electrode bodies used in nut and bolt welding processes.
2008
Poka-yoke upper electrodes
The design and production of Poka-yoke upper electrodes began in 2008. These electrodes:
- Prevent the welding of nuts that differ from the required specification
- Prevent the welding of nuts fitted upside down onto the electrode
- Are mechanical solutions that prevent welding from taking place without a nut being fitted.
Poka-yoke upper electrodes are manufactured in both fibre-insulated bushing and KCF-sleeve models.
2008
Sheet separation magnets
Our magnetic sheet separation magnets, which we have been designing and manufacturing in various sizes and dimensions since 2008, speed up production by facilitating the removal of sheet layers from the stack and their placement into the die prior to the pressing operation.
2018
Ceramic (ZrO₂ and SiN₄) centring pins
As an alternative to KCF pins, toptechnics began importing ceramic centring pins and bushings from Far Eastern countries in 2009 and offering them to its customers. Since 2018, toptechnics has been manufacturing ceramic pins and bushings in-house.
2020
Design and commencement of production of the magnetically driven compact nut feeding machine (feedero)
The 'feedero' model nut and bolt feeding machines, production of which we commenced at the start of 2020, have eliminated the following negative characteristics of conventional vibrator-driven feeding machines:
- Noise,
- Limited loading capacity,
- Excessive space requirements and
- Heavy weight.
